May 5th 2013 Good News fom Israel

In the 5th May 2013 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include: Israel’s vaccination program has resulted in a 70% reduction in cases of pneumonia. Iraqi children arrive to have life-saving surgery at Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart. Israel’s Briefcam helped identify and apprehend the Boston bombers. Israeli software will help secure Denver airport. Two innovative Israeli clean-tech companies have won International awards. 50 million people use one Israeli company’s translation software every day. Warren Buffet spends $2 billion to complete his buy-out of an Israeli company.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Fighting pneumonia and rotavirus. Israel marked “International Week for Encouraging Vaccinations” by announcing that the Prevnar vaccination introduced in 2009 had reduced annual cases of pneumonia by 70%. The rotavirus vaccine, added in 2010, has reduced gastrointestinal illness in children by 60%.

The reason for infection. A group of researchers from the Hadassah Medical Organization has located a gene that explains the reason for recurrent life threatening infections and the bone marrow failure in children.

Stopping the super bug. Israeli hospitals have imposed a strict set of procedures to prevent the spread of the super-bug MRSA. Isolation wards, dedicated staff, mandatory hand-washing and daily reports have cut the incidence of the bacteria by over 70 per cent.

Hadassah opens new center for pediatric vascular defects. Ten percent of babies are born with vascular defects, of which most are incorrectly diagnosed and can be life threatening. With the opening of a new unit in Jerusalem at Hadassah Medical Center, these children no longer need to be sent abroad for this type of surgery.

The doctor will always be with you. Israel’s Elad Systems has developed a smart-phone app to enable doctors at Tel Hashomer’s Sheba Medical Center to view the medical files of patients in real time. It will show data on hospitalization, operations, clinic visits, medical tests, prescriptions and sensitivities to help speed diagnosis.

Israel hosts Biogerontology congress. Three Israelis invented the science of Biogerontology (the study of longevity and the aging process) some 40 years ago. Recently, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev hosted the eighth European Congress of Biogerontology — the first time this event was held in Israel.

First Israeli operation to separate conjoined twins. Doctors at Haifa’s Rambam hospital performed one of the most difficult surgical procedures possible. Although one twin was not viable and was stillborn, the other is now fighting for its life. There have been only 150 cases of similarly conjoined twins in the last 126 years.

Gaza weekly deliveries: 39,865 tons of goods (over 12,000 tons more than the previous week) were delivered from Israel to Gaza on 1,548 trucks through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the week ending 27th Apr.

Muslim Arabs are Israel’s gatekeepers. Interesting source for this positive article on the Bedouin trackers who help protect the borders of the Jewish State. “The state of Bedouin in Israel is better, as far as the respect we get, our progress, education,” says Lieutenant Colonel Magdi Mazarib. “It’s a different league.”

Three Iraqi children to undergo heart surgery in Israel. Israel’s Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar has approved the arrival of three young Iraqi children to Israel, in order to receive lifesaving medical care from Israel-based international organization Save a Child’s Heart.

Another Syrian treated in Israel. A Syrian man who was wounded by shrapnel and gunfire in the ongoing civil war in his country was transferred on Monday evening to the Ziv Hospital in Tzfat. The man had suffered moderate wounds to his waist and was expected to undergo surgery.

Qatari prince to visit Israel. Israel’s business site Calcalist reports that Qatar’s Prince Khalifa Al-Thani is to visit Israel this November. This would be the first official visit of a member of the Qatari royal family to Israel, and he has expressed his desire to promote high-tech cooperation between Qatar and Israel.

Jerusalem Hills Children’s Home. Over 85 at-risk children aged from 7 to 14 receive a secure and stable home environment, therapeutic treatment and special education at the Jerusalem Hills Therapeutic Center. Since 1943 the three JHTCs have rehabilitated more than one thousand graduates back into Israel’s normative society.

Preserving the Galapagos Islands. A delegation from Ben Gurion University’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research has toured the Galapagos Islands and has signed a cooperation agreement with the Directorate of the National Park to promote the conservation of the endangered biological diversity of the islands.

Our Turkish friends. Turkish TV commentator Ceylan Ozbudak is a big supporter of the State of Israel. So is Muslim scholar Adnan Oktar. Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and Israeli Deputy Minister Ayoob Kara, among others, have appeared on his TV show. Please read the nice things that Ceylan says about the Jewish State.

Israeli technology helped catch Boston bombers. Surveillance cameras alone were not enough to locate the Boston Marathon terrorists. Israeli hi-tech company BriefCam enabled investigators to summarize an hour of surveillance video footage into only one minute and also zoom in on people and objects whose movements changed during the filming. The system then tracked those movements from the beginning of the video.

Your computer knows it’s you. (Thanks to NoCamels.com) Israeli start-up BioCatch can protect you against someone maliciously trying to access your private information. It recognizes that no two people use a computer the same way, whether it’s how you move your mouse pointer or the tiny differences in your reaction speed.

Denver airport to be NICE and secure. Israel’s NICE Systems is to deploy its Situator global situation management solution at Denver International Airport (DIA) to enhance security and safety. Denver is the largest and fifth-busiest airport in the US, serving more than 50 million passengers annually.

Watch your dog go for a walk. The ultimate dog-walking service is available in New York and will soon spread to Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. Swifto’s Israeli-developed systems allow clients to view the route of their walker on a live map through an internal GPS tracking mobile application. And much more.

Bio-furniture. Adital Ela, a sustainability design lecturer at Holon Institute of Technology, makes an entire line of interiors out of earth, straw, water and other organic natural materials. Using zero energy, she molds stools and lampshades that are incredibly sturdy can be thrown away without any undue environmental impact.

Game changing clean energy. The Israeli “smart water” network and software management firm Whitewater was named a 2013 Bloomberg New Energy Pioneer at a ceremony in New York. Whitewater was described as one of the “game-changing companies in the field of clean energy technology and innovation.”

Solar powered sensors are a winner. Israeli agro-tech Sol-Chip’s solar-powered sensors monitor the quality of the soil, irrigate automatically and even keep track of cows. Sol-Chip has just won the Technical Development Award in the 2013 IDTechEx Energy Harvesting & Storage Europe Conference in Berlin.

“The state of Israel’s economy is very good.” Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer spoke at the Institute for National Security Studies conference. Unemployment at 6.5% is the lowest in 30 years. GDP growth for 2013 is estimated at 3.8% – a figure envied by most other advanced economies.

Babylon deal translates into cash. (Thanks to Eli) Israeli translation company Babylon has signed a four-year cooperation agreement with Yahoo Inc. The two companies will share in revenue from Internet advertising, which provides Babylon with 94% of its revenue. Babylon already has around 50 million users a day.

EasyJet “goes big in Tel Aviv”. Low-cost airline easyJet is launching an aggressive marketing campaign in London, aimed at promoting tourism to Tel Aviv among young people and couples without children, under the banner “Go Big in Tel Aviv.” It also plans to fly to Israel from Rome, Milan, Paris, Nice, Berlin and more.

Israel’s space travelers go electric. Israel Aerospace Industries has signed a leasing agreement with Israel’s Better Place to operate a fleet of electric vehicles. The fleet of several dozen Renault Fluence Z.E. (Zero Emissions) cars will replace regular fuel vehicles in the company car pool.

Israeli lasers go east. China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group has bought Alma Lasers, which are developed in Caesarea. Alma Lasers’ light-based, radio frequency and ultrasound products for aesthetic and medical applications command a 15% share of the global market for high-end aesthetic devices.

Buffet is good for Israel. Seven years after mega-businessman Warren Buffet paid $4 billion for 80% of Israeli precision toolmaker Iscar, he has exercised the option to buy the rest for another $2.05 billion. The deal will generate $1 billion of tax revenue to Israel and may remove the need for some planned budget cuts.

Israeli hockey team wins in Turkey. (Thanks to SDM.) The Israeli team gained promotion to IIHF League Division IIA at the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships in Turkey. The blue and whites won four of their five league games to finish top of Division II Group B, ahead of New Zealand, Mexico, China and Turkey.

“Make Israel relevant.” “A nation is not defined by its problems”. “We need to begin a conversation about what we bring to the table as a country.” “In today’s tech environment it is not about winning debates, but building relationships with people with influence and relevance, people who matter,” Great quotes by Ido Aharoni, Israel’s consul-general in New York in this latest interview.

US Embassy supports ultra-orthodox hi-tech students. The US Embassy’s diplomatic attaché and cultural attaché visited the Lustig Institute in Ramat Gan and committed to assisting in the integration of haredi women into the high-tech sector. Two Lustig students helped develop an advanced chip for the US defense industry.

The IDF is green. To mark Earth Day, the Israel Defense Force published this list of how it protects not just the people of Israel, but its environment too. This includes wastewater recycling, solar power, re-using water from air-condition units, filtering bacteria from ship water, recycling engine oil and switching to natural gas.

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